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Ford is planning an expansive new brand advertising campaign beginning in April, and EcoBoost will be the star.

The new effort -- under the tagline "And Not Or" -- will highlight the reasons that American consumers don't have to compromise anything when buying a Ford. The emphasis will be on how buyers can enjoy great fuel economy with Ford's EcoBoost engines as well

as other important attributes of Ford vehicles including roominess, styling, technological advancement and performance.

"We're going to communicate good fuel economy, but we're the brand that gives you 'and' as well—for example, fuel economy with functionality," Scott Kelly, Ford's marketing-communications manager, told me. "It's a unique proposition. Our brand promise is that we 'Go Further.' With this, we're trying to underscore that we are the brand that goes further."

And Ford is giving its EcoBoost sub-brand a prominent role. "EcoBoost will be in 90 percent of the creative treatment," Kelly said. "Most [Ford] nameplates offer EcoBoost, so you'll see that in most of the ads."

EcoBoost -- which relies on direct-injection, turbocharging and other technologies to provide something like the power of larger engines, as well as high mileage, in lower-displacement engines -- has skyrocketed in popularity with American automotive consumers: Ford sold more than 334,000 EcoBoost-equipped vehicles in 2012 more than one-and-a-half times the number it sold in 2011. For the first two months of this year, EcoBoost vehicles tripled their year-earlier volume.

The option is even hugely popular with an audience that presumably would be toughest to please: Ford truck owners. A huge plurality of F-150 buyers now are opting for the EcoBoost-equipped version.

About 50 percent of Americans already are aware of the engine sub-brand in just its fourth year of existence. And among surveyed consumers who realized that EcoBoost is a Ford property, Kelly said, there's a 17-point increase in Ford brand favorability. "It's a killer tool for us to be able to increase the favorability of the Ford brand and our fuel-efficient vehicles," he said.

Another way in which Ford is leveraging the rising popularity of EcoBoost is to kick off a second, complementary campaign called EcoBoost Challenge. The idea is to introduce real owners of other vehicles to EcoBoost-equipped Ford vehicles. Initial TV ads -- shown during NCAA March Madness, for example -- capture what David Mondragon, Ford and Lincoln's general marketing manager, called "their unbiased feedback and impressions" in an interview with Automotive News.

Ford also will stage EcoBoost Challenge promotional events around the country.

With the Sync infotainment sub-brand fading somewhat, and suffering from its association with Ford's problematic MyFord Touch system, EcoBoost has become by far Ford's most important sub-brand.